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Republicans in Congress objected Thursday to the Homeland Security Department's now-rescinded practice of requiring secretive reviews by political advisers of hundreds of requests for government files under the Freedom of Information Act. The chairman of a House oversight committee said the process "reeks of a Nixonian enemies list" and was unacceptable.
The Homeland Security Department official in charge of submitting sensitive government files to political advisers for secretive reviews before they could be released to citizens, journalists and watchdog groups complained in emails that the unusual scrutiny was "crazy" and hoped someone outside the Obama administration would discover the practice, The Associated Press has learned.
A leading House Republican warned the Obama administration on Thursday about demoting a federal worker who complained to her agency's internal watchdog that political appointees were interfering with records requests by journalists and others.
Some Democrats in Congress objected Wednesday to early steps taken by the new Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to conduct a broad inquiry into President Barack Obama's promises to improve government transparency.
The Obama administration on Wednesday defended the integrity of estimates that for months were inaccurate in showing how much oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico, disclosing thousands of pages of internal e-mails written by government scientists on the project. "It is a guess," a senior U.S. scientist acknowledged to his colleagues.
Scores of Toyota owners filed formal complaints with the U.S. government about mysterious problems with gas pedals, brakes and steering in recent years, sometimes after terrifying accidents. The complaints, often described in remarkable detail, exist inside an enormous database intended to alert federal investigators to early signs of looming safety problems.
In a Dec. 3 story about secret Pentagon e-mails describing a bogus espionage scare over commemorative Canadian coins, The Associated Press reported that Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan declined to identify the Defense Department officials who wrote the e-mails and invited the AP to file a lawsuit to uncover their identities. The story should have specified that Lapan told the AP it could challenge the Pentagon's decision to withhold the authors' names. Under the rules of the Freedom of Information Act, such a challenge would initially involve an administrative appeal followed by a lawsuit if the appeal were unsuccessful.
Billed as a way for the government to put more fuel-efficient vehicles on highways, the popular $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program mostly involved swaps of old Ford or Chevrolet pickups for new ones that got only marginally better gas mileage, according to an analysis of new federal data by The Associated Press.
President Barack Obama's aunt who is fighting to remain in the U.S. says she might or might not be heading to Kenya before her next deportation hearing. Such a trip could affect her immigration case.
The White House is promising to reconsider a new rule requiring high-level approval before federal immigration agents can arrest fugitives. The Bush administration quietly imposed the unusual directive days before the election of Barack Obama, whose aunt has been living in the United States illegally.
The White House is promising to reconsider a new rule requiring high-level approval before federal immigration agents can arrest fugitives. The Bush administration quietly imposed the unusual directive days before the election of Barack Obama, whose aunt has been living in the United States illegally.
President-elect Barack Obama should create a new White House office to protect cyberspace from hackers, thieves and foreign agents, coordinating security efforts across U.S. military, intelligence and civilian agencies, according to a new report from a panel of leading government and industry experts.
Details emerged Thursday behind the break-in of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail account, including a first-hand account suggesting it was vulnerable because a hacker was able to impersonate her online to obtain her password.
Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.
The government acknowledged that an outbreak of one of the most contagious animal diseases from any of five locations being considered for a new high-security laboratory — an event it considered highly unlikely — would be more devastating to the U.S. economy than an outbreak from the isolated island lab where such research is now conducted.
U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce computers, officials and industry experts told The Associated Press.
In the middle of the biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game to test the nation's hacker defenses, someone quietly targeted the very computers used to conduct the exercise.
Hackers literally turned out the lights in multiple cities after breaking into electrical utilities and demanding extortion payments before disrupting the power, a senior CIA analyst told utility engineers at a trade conference.
The Homeland Security Department improperly disclosed details about a serious threat to the U.S. electrical grid to industry researchers just days after it produced a video showing simulated hackers remotely seizing control over a $1 million diesel-electric generator.
The Transportation Security Administration did not follow White House instructions to protect sensitive information on a computer hard drive containing bank and payroll data for 100,000 employees that was discovered missing, the agency acknowledged to Congress.
An odd-looking Canadian quarter with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a false espionage warning from the Defense Department about mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned.
College students who faced lawsuits for illegally sharing large music collections over campus computer networks increasingly risk being unplugged from the Internet or even suspended over lesser complaints by the recording industry.
Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.
President Bush's choice to be the nation's new spy chief works as a $2 million-a-year private consultant with some of the same senior military and intelligence officials he would supervise as director of national intelligence.
Money talks, but can it also follow your movements?
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